TORONTO — In any other year, a trip to Canada by the mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth might have seemed like just another chance for good trade partners to network and hobnob.

But in the age of Donald Trump, a wave of nationalism and protectionist sentiment has made the North Texas delegation's trek rather conspicuous.

The 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, among the U.S., Mexico and Canada is set to be renegotiated later this year. Outwardly, Canadian officials played it cool Monday. But after several private meetings in Toronto, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings senses some anxiety there.

In fact, Rawlings said Canadian officials seemed excited that they shared views on trade with him and Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price.

Officials from the region and Canada have good reason to be friendly. The greater Toronto area is the No. 1 trade partner of Dallas-Fort Worth with more than $1.6 billion in trade annually, according to the Brookings Institution. Montreal, where the North Texas delegation will spend most of the week, ranked No. 3 in trade for the region, trailing Mexico City.

North Texas business leaders also see more opportunity for growth in Canada. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has added Air Canada flights.

D/FW CEO Sean Donohue said cargo shipping that goes through the airport is important to the region. Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty CEO Robbie Briggs, who lives in Dallas and is part of the delegation, said he works with Canadian developers and will be looking for more opportunities there.

Canada is also important as a trade partner to Texas at large. The state's exports to Canada totaled nearly $20 billion in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Texas also imported about $15 billion worth of goods from Canada.

"I am hoping that the message is received on both sides of the border that this is a partnership worth not just preserving, but growing and strengthening," said Sara Wilshaw, Canada's consul general in Dallas.

But the relationship with Texas had its own recent hiccup that mirrors national issues. The state Legislature ruffled some Canadian feathers with a bill that expands a provision prodding the state's water and transportation agencies to buy American iron and steel.

Wilshaw said the Canadian government was disappointed that Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law Friday. She said it's difficult to pinpoint the law's impact on Canadian businesses, but she's worried that the law is indicative of "a larger issue" of anti-trade sentiment.

A spokesman for the bill's author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, did not respond to a request for comment, but Rawlings and Price said they thought the bill intended to deal with Chinese steel and was too broad.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said in a statement she is hoping for an exception in the Texas law for her province.

Meanwhile, Wynne met with Rawlings and Price on Monday to talk about building stronger relationships with North Texas. And she found them like-minded on free trade.

The delegation and Canadian officials said they hope reopening NAFTA will ultimately strengthen trade ties between the two countries. They see opportunities to modernize the deal to include intellectual property and e-commerce and other business sectors that were not included or even heard of in the original NAFTA talks.

Ontario Trade Minster Michael Chan said he's not nervous about the future of NAFTA.

"We believe that when we all exercise reasoning, we all come to the table with open minds," Chan said. "I think NAFTA can be really strengthened and enhance the benefits to all countries."

But worries among Canadians persist. Trump has said NAFTA is unfair to American workers and hurts the U.S. economy. He considered withdrawing from NAFTA earlier this year before deciding to renegotiate the deal.

In several local interviews, Canadian journalists peppered the mayors with questions about NAFTA, the "Buy America" law and Trump, whose name is emblazoned on a 65-story hotel in Toronto.

Rawlings is generally optimistic that Washington will back down from the rhetoric that trade is a zero-sum game when officials see evidence of what's at stake.

"When you peel the onion back a little bit, people start to understand that we're so interwoven economically that it would be very hard and very disruptive to blow this thing as opposed to evolve it and modify it," Rawlings said. "In the long run, I'm very confident that the marketplace always wins over politics. That's just the way the world works."

But James Hollifield, a Southern Methodist University professor of international political economy, is not as confident that NAFTA, which he called a political "whipping boy," will be spared from national politics.

"At least at the local level, in these regions like Dallas-Fort Worth, the mayors have no doubt how important this is for the economic growth of the city and the region. And I don't think you'll have much argument from the Canadians about how important this is," Hollifield said. "The problem we see, obviously, is at the national level with the Trump administration blaming trade for loss of jobs. It's become all too common among many leaders in Western democracies to blame trade and economic openness for many social ills."

The mayors, Hollifield said, "will have to work very hard at the national level and the federal level to convince the U.S. government not to shoot ourselves in the foot."